


Fifteen Days

by FabulaRasa



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-24 10:47:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12011127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FabulaRasa/pseuds/FabulaRasa
Summary: Napoleon is taken and tortured by a rogue KGB operative. When he returns, Illya must help him heal.This work is marked explicit, but not all chapters contain explicit sexual activity.





	1. Chapter 1

He woke to a dim apprehension of pain. He knew he was in pain, but he could also feel the muting presence of medication; the pain was there, but distant. He recorded the ache in every limb, and let his memories slip into place before he opened his eyes.

“Drink,” said the voice he was waiting for, and a hand slipped behind his neck, gently lifting him, so he obeyed and drank. He groaned a bit at the movement, and then there were pills nudging at his lips. He swallowed again, and fluttered his eyes open. 

Illya was there, mixing some sort of concoction on the bedside table. He was back in their rooms, and not in a hospital, so that was good news – possibly it meant he was not in such bad shape after all. Possibly it meant Waverly was concerned for their cover. Illya was frowning. Not just frowning. There were deep lines of displeasure furrowing his face, a set of anger to his jaw.

“What’s wrong,” Napoleon croaked, and Illya’s face was instantly wiped clear.

“Nothing,” he said. “Everything is fine.”

Napoleon tried to laugh, but it became a cough. There was the same hand, lifting him now so he could sit up and cough more clearly. The coughing fit drained him, and he collapsed against the nearest solid object, which turned out to be Illya. Those arms held him up, and Napoleon remembered how it was he came to be here: remembered those same arms lifting him from the bare concrete. The steady stream of Russian curses. The blood streaking Illya’s face.

“You were injured,” Napoleon murmured. “When you—when I saw you.”

“No,” Illya said, easing him back down onto the bed and arranging the coverlet.

“Liar. I saw the blood.”

“Was not my blood.”

“Whose then?”

“Petrushka’s men.”

“Which ones?”

“All of them.”

Napoleon digested this in silence. There had been nine of them, by his own count, but that count had possibly not been accurate; in the last days of his captivity he had been in and out of consciousness, and his surroundings had been harder to track. All of them. 

“Could I have. . . more water.”

Again Illya’s hands lifted him a bit, brought the water to his lips with infinite care. It occurred to him his partner had not stopped touching him, in one way or another. He brought his hand to Illya’s, brushing against it. “I’m fine,” he said, though he knew the weakness of his voice betrayed him. “Stop worrying.”

Illya set the water down. “You have internal injuries, I think. You belong in hospital.”

So that was the reason for the furrows, then. He reached for Illya again, but kept missing. Just as well. He was so tired. That would be the meds. “Don’t. . . think so,” he said. “They used. . . mainly nerve. . .” He couldn’t remember the word. His eyes were drifting shut.

Illya’s hand had clasped his. Actually, Illya’s hand was wringing his. Illya’s head was bowed to their clasped hands. “I have failed you again,” he said, his voice cracking. “It should not have taken me so long. There is no excuse. You suffered because of me – because it is me Petrushka hates, and because I was so late in finding you.”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure he hates me too,” Napoleon managed. But Illya did not laugh, did not lift his head. “Peril,” he said, but that got him nowhere. “Illya,” he tried. “Illyusha.” That was the name that got those eyes back on his.

“You did not fail me,” he said. He said it in Russian, because when he needed to be heard, really heard, that was what he did. When either of them needed to speak truth, Russian was what they relied on. “Mόy drúg,” he added. _My friend._

He tried to tug Illya closer, but he was too weak. Point of interest: would the nerve weakness in his limbs be permanent? A terrifying laser-sharp vision of a life of disability, but in truth the terror was as muted as the pain, because of Illya’s presence. “Come. . . here,” he murmured. 

He woke some hours later to find that Illya was beside him in the vast bed. Wrapped more or less around him, in fact. Still clasping his hand. He felt greater clarity now. Sharper, more specific lances of agony instead of the dull blanket of pain it had been before. He rolled over a bit, and winced. Illya gathered him closer, and Napoleon allowed it. Illya’s body was much more comfortable than the mattress, and he felt braced in all the right places. Part of him wished they could stay like this forever. Part of him knew Illya was awake too.

He wondered what Waverly would think, if he opened the door on them right now. Well, Waverly was English. 

“They are homosexuals,” Illya had said, with shock and distaste. They had been tracking their mark, lurking in an alley. Their mark had been busy shoving his tongue down another man’s throat, then other body parts down the same throat.

“Well spotted,” Napoleon had sighed, seizing the binoculars from him. “After all, they are English. Le vice anglais and all that.”

“That is flogging.”

“No it isn’t. Le vice anglais is sodomy, trust me.”

“Le vice français is sodomy. It is the English who like flogging.”

“Le vice français is alcoholism, as anyone who’s ever dated French can tell you.”

“That would be interesting guidebook,” Illya mused. “U.N.C.L.E. can distribute to all new recruits. National character, as observed in bed by Napoleon Solo.”

“They could do worse.” He focused the binoculars. “All right, get ready to move.”

Illya had craned his neck. “He is not finished yet.”

“He will be soon. He’s English.”

“You know, I think I will tell Waverly some of the things you think about the English.”

“Oh come now, you can’t fault me for that. My father may have been Italian, but my mother was Irish, with all the affection toward the English that that entails. She once told me that say what you will about Hitler, he did bomb London.”

“Your mother was fascist.”

“I’ll have you know she is alive and well in Queens even as we speak. These days her fascist tendencies find expression in running the St. Brigid’s altar guild with an iron fist. All right, let’s move in. Or. . . damn. Never mind.”

“What is it?”

“Round two,” he had sighed, handing off the binoculars.

“Hm,” Illya had said, peering at the scene below them. “I think you owe Waverly apology.”

And Napoleon had begun to laugh, just quietly. Illya had smiled too. Their job was grim, and they took amusement where they could. But part of him had not forgotten the tone of Illya’s voice when he had said _they are homosexuals_. He doubted there were omissions in the KGB file on him, and he had no reason to think Illya had not read the file thoroughly. If le vice américain was optimism, he had none of it. 

He let himself forget all of that, as Illya cradled him. The curtains were drawn, and he was unsure if it was day or night, or how long he had drifted in half-sleep as his body tried to heal. Illya’s breathing was slow and even. He saw his memories more clearly now, too. There had not been blood simply streaking Illya’s face. He had been awash in it. Drenched in it. Covering his hands, in his hair. 

“How many in the extraction team?” he said. The arms around him tightened, ever so slightly.

“It was small team,” Illya said. 

“How small?”

“Very small.”

“You went in alone,” Napoleon said. There was silence. Illya had gone alone. Because he had not waited for the team, or because Waverly had told him there would be no team? Had they left him to die? It would have been the prudent move. Waverly was nothing if not prudent. 

“Spasíbo,” he murmured. _Thank you._

He tried to tighten his arms on Illya too, but his muscles were still too weak. If he could lie here forever, possibly he could be strong again. Drawing strength from Illya’s body like Antaeus from the earth. “You need to rest,” Illya whispered. There was a hand stroking his head. 

“I think I might. . . sleep a bit more then.”

“Sleep, dorogόy.” 

Napoleon’s eyes snapped open at that. Dear one, Illya had just called him. He stared at the dusty brocade of the curtains. That was not a word he had heard from Illya’s mouth before. Dear one. His fingers reached tentatively for Illya’s hand, and Illya’s hand clasped his. Not too tight, because there was still pain. He drifted back into sleep, the syllables beating in his brain: _dorogόy, dorogόy, dorogόy._

Dear one.


	2. Chapter 2

When he woke again, Illya helped him get up and shower. “A bath, I think,” Illya said, watching how unsteady he still was.

“A shower,” Napoleon said. 

“Then I bring chair. Wait here and I—”

“Stop nursemaiding me,” he said testily, and headed off to the bathroom on his own, only weaving a little. 

In the bathroom, he studied the slick white porcelain of the tub. A bath would probably be wiser, but he couldn’t take one, not now that Illya had suggested it. He wondered if Illya had washed away the blood in here, and how long he had had to stand under the spray to rinse it all off. 

He fell, predictably. He was hoping the sound of the water had masked the thud of his body, but no such luck. Within two seconds, Illya had ripped back the shower curtain. “Peril, I’m fine,” he sighed, but silently Illya turned off the tap and fetched a towel to wrap him. 

“Come on, up you go,” he said, hoisting him. He managed to step out of the tub, but with difficulty; that right leg did not obey him the way it ought to, and kept getting caught underneath him. 

“You let me,” Illya said, and scooped him up and into his arms in one smooth motion. 

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Napoleon sighed, but inwardly he was shocked at the ease of it. He had lost track of time, in that dungeon. He had thought it was three or four days, maybe a week. Now he knew it had to have been more, for him to have lost that much weight. Possibly much more. Illya carried him to the bed and deposited him, gently. Rummaged through his dresser for pajamas, of all things. Napoleon snatched them from his hand. 

Illya sat on the side of the bed and watched him with sad eyes as he dressed. He felt like he had kicked a Golden Retriever. “You understand I’m not angry at you,” he tried.

Illya’s small smile was Illya’s. “Yes you are,” he said. 

“I’m not fond of being weak.”

The smile was wiped from Illya’s face. “Weak,” he repeated. He got up and stalked to the windows. He ran his fingers through his hair, stalked off to the other room. Then he stalked back. “Weak,” he said again, pointing his finger, his voice shaking. “Weak? You are strongest man I know. My whole life, I never know anyone this strong. You give me strength, teach me how to be strong. What strong means. You are—you—”

It was a sign of his disruption that Illya’s English was suffering. Napoleon reached for his hand. “Prostí menya, dorogόy,” he said. _Forgive me, dear one_. “Spacíbo tebyé za. . .vsyé.” Thank you for everything.

His hand rested comfortably in Illya’s, and Illya held his eyes, not looking away. For once Napoleon didn’t flinch away either. They sat like that for long moments, and it was a time of quiet self-knowledge, for Napoleon. Much was said that otherwise could not be said. 

“Help me with the buttons,” he finally said, and Illya knelt in front of him, working efficiently. Afterward he helped him back into the bed. It was evidence of their newfound understanding that he did not need to ask Illya to stay. He got into bed beside him, and they rested like that, arms draped loosely around each other. After a bit Napoleon shifted, and Illya pulled him closer, and his head was back on Illya’s chest. 

“We should consider what will happen if the nerve damage is permanent,” he said aloud. Illya’s hand had been lightly stroking his back, and he did not stop. 

“Time enough for that. Rest now.”

“I don’t think my hand is strong enough to pull the trigger. Promise me you’ll do it for me.”

“I will not.”

“Illya—”

There was a firm grasp on the back of his head, yanking almost at his neck. “No. You shut your mouth. No. This you will never ask of me. You ask anything of me, and I will do it. You ask me to cut my own throat for you, I will do it. But raise my hand to hurt you, that I will never, never do. You cannot ask it.”

“You are letting your friendship for me cloud your judgment. It’s a simple matter of—”

“No!” Illya roared. His fingers gripping Napoleon’s head were painful now. “You listen to me. This we will not talk of!” 

Napoleon shut his eyes. “I. . . understand,” he said. His eyes stung, burned. The weight that sat in his chest was clawing its way into his throat. “But I cannot—I cannot—”

He tipped his head onto Illya’s chest, and horrible silent wracks seized him. He didn’t know what was happening to him. It wasn’t weeping, exactly. The spasmodic response of a body that refused to weep, possibly. That no longer could. He had done forever with crying; that lesson had been earned early, and too well. Could not remember when last he had wept. But all the pain and loneliness and yes, terror of the last weeks clawed its way out of his body as he lay there, laboring for air. They were quiet spasms that tore at his body, and Illya held him so hard he could almost not breathe. Illya said things into his hair, his neck that could not be true, things Illya would never say. Illya shook too.

“Forgive me,” Illya said, over and over. “It was my fault, everything they did to you was my fault. Forgive me, forgive me. I left you to die, oh God, oh God I cannot bear—dorogόy, I am here, forgive me, forgive me.”

He didn’t know how long they lay there. But after a while the storm subsided, and he was still resting in Illya’s arms, and Illya in his. Maybe he drifted off to sleep again, or maybe he didn’t. The light outside the curtains had changed. 

There were things he would never tell Illya, that they had done to him. But Illya was a smart man, and he knew Petrushka. He could guess. Sometimes when he lay very still he could still hear the poisoned hiss of Petrushka’s words in his ear. _Is this how he fucks you, is this the piece of ass that made him betray his country, betray everything he believes in? Is this what feels so good to him?_ And with every thrust: _This? This? This?_ But Napoleon bit his mouth to the blood, because he would not allow any sound to escape, would not give that motherfucker the satisfaction of a single groan at the pain. It was not like with the nerve convulsives – then he could not help that he screamed his throat raw. 

_Is this what it’s like? This? This?_

“Not really,” Napoleon had managed. “You’d have to—grow your tiny cock—quite a bit more if you want to—”

The vicious blow to his head had knocked him unconscious, so he didn’t know how long it went on after that, but it had been worth it. Illya was still stroking his head, and their foreheads were tipped together. So close, so close. A small adjustment of his neck, and his mouth would be brushing Illya’s. He could kiss him. _You ask anything of me, and I will do it._ Up to and including what, exactly?

He constructed the scene in his head, played it out. Illya’s small motion of surprise, the quick downturn of his eyes. _Cowboy, I did not mean. . . No no of course, forget it please. . . It is just that I am not like that. . . No obviously, it was just a thought, shall we order dinner perhaps?_ Funny that just a few months ago he had made his peace with the fact that he wanted to fuck his partner. He hadn’t thought much of it at the time, really. Now he knew he wanted much, much worse. He wanted to eat his mouth, to kiss him until they both ran blood.

He raised his eyes to find Illya studying him. “What is in that head of yours,” Illya said.

“Gaby,” he said. “I was wondering if you were ever going to tell me why she left.”

“She left to take different assignment, you know this.”

“Mm. I also know that you have many skills as a spy, and lying is unfortunately not among them. Why did she take that assignment last March?”

Illya made a motion that might have been intended as a shrug. “I said foolish things. She said foolish things back.”

“What was the foolish thing you said?”

“I might have accused her of being in love with Waverly.”

Napoleon raised his eyebrows. Actually, that was quite a perceptive get on Illya’s part. Napoleon had wondered the same thing at points, but he wouldn’t have had the balls to say it to Gaby’s face. Courage, however, was not one of Illya’s deficits as a spy. 

“And what was the foolish thing she said to you?”

“She accused me of being in love with you.”

He froze, and he knew Illya could feel it. “What a foolish thing to say.”

“Which one?”

“Both. Well, actually I have wondered about her loyalty to Waverly. It does seem to go quite a bit beyond loyalty, at times.”

“Mm. I am sure she says same thing about us.”

Illya’s voice was easy, and nothing in his body had changed. They were still lying wrapped in each other’s arms. He could feel Illya’s every inhale, the soft gust of his breath on his face. It was agony. Why was he doing this? Did he mean to be doing this? “Illyusha,” he whispered. “Are you teasing me?”

“Nikogdá, dorogόy.” _Never, dear one._

By now he was breathing fast. A matter of inches, and they were so close, so close—

The banging on the outer door froze them both. He saw Illya’s eyes slide quickly shut. He swore in Russian, low and vicious, and extricated himself. “Stay here,” Illya said peremptorily, as he slid the bedroom door shut behind him, and Napoleon’s eyebrows rose. He would chalk that one up to a temporary brain hemorrhage on Illya’s part, that he believed he could give orders to him. There were voices in the other room – Waverly’s voice. Napoleon slipped on a bathrobe and made it to the door, pressing his ear against it.

They were walking out onto the balcony. Their voices were subdued. Napoleon slid back the bedroom door. Through the sheers he had an excellent view of the two of them as they stood there, but the sunlight was bright enough they would not be able to see him. 

Waverly was saying something. Illya stood with his hands on his hips, his head bowed. He was nodding. After a few more minutes of this, Illya reached into his waist and pulled out the small piece he kept there, laid it on the table. Waverly was talking some more. Illya was frowning now, shaking his head. 

After another minute Illya opened the balcony door, slamming it behind him. Illya went across into his bedroom, and returned with three more weapons. He stalked back to the balcony and laid them on the table. Waverly nodded. He gathered up the weapons. Illya had his back to Waverly now, was staring out at the view. He would be getting control of himself. 

Waverly came back into the suite’s main room. Napoleon did not bother to hide himself, as he leaned on the bedroom door. Waverly met his eyes and looked like he was going to speak. Something in Napoleon’s gaze probably made him think better of it. He hesitated, and then he was gone. 

He gave Illya a few more minutes, and then he made his slow way out onto the balcony. The sunlight was piercingly bright. But the sun felt good. Like the warmth could give him strength, maybe.

For a while he stood at the balcony next to Illya, studying the view along with him. It was their destiny to stare at views they never really saw. “He took your gun,” Napoleon said.

“Yes.”

“Permanently, or temporarily?”

“It is just for now. There will be inquiry.”

“Mm.” He squinted at the view. If you stared long enough, you could just see the outline of the mountains, in the far north. “How many did you kill?”

“I don’t remember.”

“But Waverly does. How many?”

“Twenty-one, apparently.”

“Impressive.”

“I thought so. But it turns out, in our line of work, is not good to be over-achiever.”

Napoleon threw back his head and laughed. It wrenched his abdominals, but it felt so good. “Careful, Peril,” he said. “You are in danger of developing a wry sense of humor.”

“I am Russian, is my birthright.” He glanced at Napoleon. “Sit down, what are you doing? You will wear yourself out.”

“What’s wearing me out is you being my babushka. I’m fine, and I need to try to walk as much as I can.” But in truth he was getting a little dizzy, so he sat down. Quite a bit dizzy, actually. Illya knelt beside him. 

“You are all right?”

“Dizzy,” he said. “It will pass. This inquiry, who will sit on it?”

“I do not know. He did not say.”

“So there’s a better than even chance that you will end up out in the cold, and I will end up crippled.”

“I would say, not impossible. But I think I know just the thing.” He rose and went back inside, emerging moments later with a bottle of vodka and two glasses. He set the glasses on the table. 

“Ah,” Napoleon said. “Day drinking would not appear to be the solution.”

“What are you talking about, is solution to everything.” 

“Le vice russe,” Napoleon said, and Illya’s mouth twisted in a smile. He knocked his glass against Napoleon’s and downed it with a stiff wrist. 

“I have a safe house in New York,” Napoleon said. “Several of them, in fact. We can go there.”

“This would be with your Irish mother?”

“Possibly.”

“Mm.” Illya was squinting at the remains of his vodka. “Tell me something, Solo. If your mother is Irish, how is it you are circumcised?”

Napoleon lifted his brows. “Childhood accident?”

It was Illya’s turn to laugh aloud. “They were trying to cut off your balls, and the knife slipped,” he said.

“That was it. It’s coming back to me now.”

“Unlike your dick.”

Napoleon laughed and choked a little on the vodka. It was terrifyingly strong, or he was out of practice. Possibly both. “A bleaker possibility,” he said, when he had breath again. “Nothing changes. The inquiry reprimands you but re-instates you with full privileges. My injuries heal completely. We both go back out into the field as before, and our lives go on until they quite suddenly don’t, and there it is.”

“You mean, everything is same as before.”

“Yes.”

Illya was nodding thoughtfully. “I need more vodka for that one,” he said, and poured again. Napoleon tipped his head back and let the vodka sing in his veins. Possibly it wasn’t the lack of practice so much as the narcotics he was already on.

“Come on,” Illya said, knocking a hand against his knee. “Back to bed with you.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re fine, you’re fine. I have ruble for every time you tell me you’re fine, I am rich man. Come on, let’s go.” And Illya leaned down to help hoist him out of the chair. Napoleon didn’t struggle, but let himself be guided back inside and to his bedroom. 

“I’ll tell you who’s a rich man,” he said. “Waverly is rich. Titled and everything. Did you ever consider that’s why Gaby left you?”

“Did you ever consider you are terrible person?”

“All the—damn time,” he said with a wince, as he lowered himself into the bed. The vodka was taking the edge off the pain though. Illya re-filled his water carafe and arranged his blankets. 

“You need to eat more,” he said. “When you wake up I will see what I can find that will taste good to you.”

“Peril.”

“Mm.”

“I’m sorry about your badge.”

“Does not matter. I would do it again.”

“I know.” 

He wondered if he would have to ask Illya to lie back down with him, or if that moment was over. Considering Illya’s whole career had possibly just ended because of him, it might be that he was not feeling too charitably disposed toward Napoleon right now. Probably he would want some time alone. And that estimation appeared to be correct, because he left the room without another word. Well, what had he really expected? Before had been an anomaly. Illya had felt pity, most likely. A bit of emotional confusion, mixed with concern. Napoleon turned his head and bit back the flat taste of humiliation in his mouth. 

But then Illya had returned, carrying a giant duvet. “You are getting chill,” he said. “You need to be warmer.” And he spread the humongous thing out on top of Napoleon’s already formidable pile of quilts.

“Peril. What I need to be is able to breathe. What are you—stop that, for heaven’s sake. Can’t you just—come on, lie down, you’re making me nervous.”

And to his surprise Illya stopped, and climbed back in the bed with him. He made as if to gather Napoleon into his arms again, but stopped halfway. “This is. . . all right?” he murmured.

“This is all right,” Napoleon said, and they re-settled more or less as they had been before Waverly’s interruption. Possibly not quite as close as before, when they had brushed the danger line. 

He meant to stay awake, he truly did, but he had not really been prepared for the way the vodka was going to play hell with him. He meant to talk over safehouse possibilities some more. They should plan, have something in place if the inquiry went south. He needed to contact Waverly directly, tell him to stop fucking over Illya for rescuing him. Not that it would do any good; Waverly would do what Waverly would do. But they needed to talk, to plan, to strategize.

Instead, he fell back into the embrace of sleep. Or possibly that was Illya’s embrace. Whatever it was, it warmed and steadied him through the night, and stroked his hair when he stirred.


	3. Chapter 3

“Try again,” Illya said, and Napoleon aimed a glare of pure hate at him.

“No,” he said.

“Yes. Come on, up. Up. Up up up up up.”

Napoleon entertained a brief satisfying fantasy of slicing out Illya’s tongue with a steak knife. But he lifted his leg one more time, gasping and shaking. He got it to the desired height, then fell back on the bed. “Good!” Illya crowed. “That was very good. Look, you were much higher that time.”

“Fuck you,” Napoleon said weakly. And then the retching began. Illya was at his side instantly with a bowl for him to spit into. When he was done he fell back again.

“I pushed too hard,” Illya said.

“No. It’s working. Let’s go again.”

“Is enough for today. You cannot get stronger if you strain the muscles. Rest now. And look what I find at bakery – chocolate torte. Just like you like, because you have sweet tooth like little girl. Come on, sit up and eat. Time to get fat.”

Napoleon groaned. Illya’s new determination to stuff him with tortes, crepes, gateaux and blinis until he puked was going to be the death of him. Not as quickly, however, as his physical therapy program, or as Napoleon liked to think of it, the torture program.

The day after Waverly’s visit, Napoleon had awakened to an empty suite. He had begun to be concerned by the time Illya returned, weighed down with what appeared to be library books. “Look at this, Cowboy,” he had proclaimed, spreading the books out on the bed. “Is new science of physical therapy. Make your muscles strong. We start work today.”

“I really don’t think that’s—”

“First step is leg lifts,” he had announced, flipping to what looked suspiciously like the middle of the book. And then he had seized Napoleon’s leg and begun hoisting. 

“God help me,” he had groaned. 

But he had this to say for him, the man was determined. He was also a competent researcher. He stayed up till all hours reading those books, making notes on his damnable notepad, frowning, scratching out, making more notes. He taped the therapy schedule to the walls of Napoleon’s room, announced each new exercise with positively Soviet enthusiasm, and encouraged him in his exercises with a mania Napoleon could only describe as hell-sent. He was impervious to complaints, and seemed to take it as a personal compliment each time Napoleon puked. 

“I hate you,” Napoleon would say, each time Illya entered the bedroom, and his face would beam as if Napoleon had bestowed the sweetest of endearments. 

Every third day, Illya declared to be a day of rest. Only it was not quite a day of rest, because those were the days when Illya scoured the city for the most tempting pastries and fattening foods he could find, to pile in front of Napoleon like a proud caveman returned from the hunt. 

“What is that?” Napoleon said, peering around his newspaper. 

“Canelés aux canard,” Illya announced.

“What? You took canelés and spread puréed duck on them? That’s an offense against God and man, I’m not eating that.” He went back to his newspaper. 

“Ah but wait. Now you like.” And Illya dipped a spoon into a jar, and drizzled warm chocolate sauce over the whole disgusting confection. “Yes?”

“Sweet merciful Lord. You have gone round the twist, disembarked at the wrong port, bought the banana farm, staffed the entire cuckoo clock factory. I am not putting that anywhere near my mouth.”

“What is wrong with it?”

“What is—first of all, you cannot just pile one food on top of another like that. Flavors should meet gently in the mouth, not collide like electrons in a mad scientist's nuclear fusion experiment gone horribly wrong. The essence of the canelé is its delicacy, you understand? The interplay of vanilla and rum, each balancing the other, in an endless conversation of equals. The duck is – duck is like driving a motorbike into a garden party, it destroys everything.”

Illya was frowning. “What do you mean?”

“What do I mean? What do I _mean_? All right, look, try that duck paste. See? Give it a try.” Illya lifted a fork, and Napoleon did too, savoring the flavor, weighing it. 

“All right, not bad, see? But it needs to be in conversation with a flavor that is equally strong and earthy – like, say, a citrus.”

“Like this?” And Illya lifted their morning jar of marmalade from the tray.

“Well, yes, that’s not at all a bad example, orange pairs quite well with duck as long as the whole thing isn’t too overdone. Hand me that baguette over there.” He began to prepare a few slices of bread with the duck paste and marmalade, licking his fingers as he went. “You see? That’s how food should be prepared. Try that. It isn’t some dreadful melée of flinging food onto a plate like monkeys hurling feces at the zoo. Try this one, with a bit less of the marmalade, letting the duck predominate.” He took a bite himself, handing it off to Illya, who was smiling for some reason.

The Day of the Duck wasn’t even the worst of Illya’s culinary atrocities – pigeon éclairs followed, and macarons with shrimp tartare, and Cornish game hens with chestnut cream and meringue, and every selection was drizzled with chocolate sauce, due to Illya’s apparent conviction that chocolate made everything better. Napoleon expended enormous energy deconstructing the monstrosities Illya brought home, carefully explaining why X would never in a million years go with Y, and rebuilding it all into something that passed for an edible meal. If Illya were a better actor he would assume the whole thing was just an elaborate ruse to get him interested in food again, but Illya wasn’t that good an actor, surely. He seemed genuinely astonished every night, when Napoleon explained to him the basic mechanics of the culinary art. 

Worst of all, everything appeared to be working.

He had more strength in his muscles with every passing day. The weight was coming back, slowly but surely, along with his strength. The hours of the day that weren’t passed in the torture of physical therapy were pleasant enough – Illya stretched on his bed playing desultory chess with him, or when he declared dissatisfaction with Napoleon’s game, playing chess with himself. 

“It’s very irritating to watch that, you know,” Napoleon said one night, as Illya bent over the chess board. They were sitting in the living room, balcony doors open to the warm night air.

“What is?”

“You. Doing that. Playing by yourself. Chess solitaire isn’t something people do. It’s indicative of a mental disorder.”

“So are your crossword puzzles,” he said, idly thumbing a bishop.

“Crossword puzzles are exercises in mental acuity. _That_ is just pointless. You obviously know what your own next move is going to be, why are you even studying it? It’s about as fascinating as watching someone masturbate.”

Illya barked a laugh at that one. “What would you know, Cowboy? I’ll have you know I put on good show.”

Napoleon bit back the suggestive remark he was going to make, and subsided into silence. Best to let sleeping dogs lie. Illya had shown no embarrassment over his little lapse earlier, but also no inclination to let it happen again. He focused on his crossword, but when he glanced up Illya was just watching him. Tapping a pawn against his chin.

“Perfectly good innuendo, and you walk away from it,” he said. “Why is that?”

“Possibly because I am not, unlike some people, eleven.”

“Or because you worry I do not – what is American saying? – get the message.”

Illya went back to his game. After another few minutes he tipped the king over and studied the carnage of the board. Then he got up and headed to his room. Napoleon watched him in silence. 

He sat there for some time after Illya had gone to bed. Replaying their exchange, tugging at the corners of its meaning. It could have meant any number of things. It could have been one more example of Illya’s wild misapprehension of idioms. Most likely it was. 

He sat there so long he winced when he tried to shift. “Damn,” he muttered. The muscles in that leg had started to spasm, because he had sat here too long like an idiot, with it bent. So he could wrench himself up now, and risk it giving on him, which would mean a fall, which would mean Illya coming to his rescue once again, or he could continue to sit here. 

Obviously the correct choice was b, continue to sit staring into space like a fool. But as he sat he considered, and the thing he considered was Waverly. 

Illya had gone in alone. Was that because there would be no team, because Waverly had refused to put him in command of the team, or because Waverly wanted to wait? All of those were likely possibilities. It wasn’t like he confused Waverly’s attentiveness to them with some kind of affection. He and Illya were extremely useful tools, in an extremely delicate game, but they were ultimately, like all tools, expendable. When you were a tool, you had to look out for your own interests. But now it was the two of them, and it had just been made abundantly clear that they would look out for each other’s interests above, if necessary, the interests of their orders. That made them a threat. That made them doubly expendable. 

Idly he considered the possibility that Waverly had come to this conclusion some time ago, and had betrayed him to Petrushka. Waverly might have been the one who put him there in the first place. A way of punishing Illya, perhaps. Controlling him.

For a while Petrushka had made him believe that he had Illya too. _If you please me in your answers, perhaps I will let him live_ , Petrushka had said. 

_Fuck you._

A vicious smack across the face. When his swollen eyes opened again, Petrushka was sharpening something. _Do not worry, this is not for you. This is for Kuryakin. Would you like to see how I am going to punish him for your insolence?_

Napoleon had laughed – a dry croak of a sound, but a laugh nonetheless. _You don’t have him. You’ll never catch him._

_No? Then how is it I have caught you? There are people you work for who are willing to give me anything I want. How is it, do you think, that you and I come to be here together? A phone call in the night, an address. It is that simple._

_No._

_Yes. But you are more interesting than he is, I will grant you that. If you hold my interest, perhaps I will stay here with you and leave him alone._

_Stay away from him._

_Why?_

_Leave him alone. Leave him alone, damn you._

Petrushka’s laugh, low and evil. And then his thick repulsive meat, shoving at Napoleon’s cracked lips. _So suck it and make it worth my while_. He would laugh when Napoleon gagged and retched on his cum. 

“Cowboy?” Illya stood in the doorway, frowning at him.

Napoleon arranged his face. “Yes. I was just. . . thinking.”

“Why are you still awake?”

“Oh. I. . .suppose I lost track of time. Go back to bed, I’m fine.”

But nothing set off Illya’s alerts quite like _I’m fine_ , of course, which he realized too late. Illya was bending beside him. “It hurts, yes?”

Napoleon nodded. Illya went away and came back with a handful of meds. Napoleon shook his head. “Please, I don’t. . . it’s fine. They make me too. . . I’d rather not.”

Illya put the meds on the coffee table and bent to him again. “Then let’s get you in bed, yes?”

“Why don’t I just stay here?”

“Dorogόy,” he said softly, rubbing at his knee. “Let me help you.”

Napoleon nodded curtly, but could not meet his eyes. Illya hoisted him with infinite care, draping Napoleon’s arm around his shoulder. “Come now,” he said, but the motion was enough to wrench his locked muscles, and Napoleon cried out. He buried his face in Illya’s shoulder. 

“All right, new plan,” Illya said. “Sofa instead. Come, we just turn this way, like that. You see? And now you can lie down.”

With difficulty Illya got him positioned on the sofa. It was a very nice sofa – plush and velvet, with just enough firmness. More pleasant than the vast emptiness of his bed. Illya brought him a blanket, and sat on the floor beside the sofa, stretching out his long legs.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting comfortable.”

“Why? Go to bed, I’m—”

“Fine, yes, I know. Always you are fine. But tonight I will be here. And for once you will shut up about it.” He tipped his head back onto the sofa and closed his eyes. Napoleon burrowed into his blanket and watched him. 

“Illya,” he said.

“Mm.”

“Did Waverly refuse to send an extraction team?”

Those blue eyes flicked open. “You need to sleep. And so do I. Have difficult day tomorrow.”

“Ah yes. Masturbatory chess and progressive torture of both me and innocent foodstuffs.”

Illya laughed silently. His eyes drifted shut again, and Napoleon watched him sleep. Illya slept like a cat – in snatches, wherever he could, in whatever position he happened to be in. Sleep was not such a common occurrence for Napoleon, and he envied Illya that. 

Illya’s hair had gotten a bit long recently. It was developing some waves. Napoleon studied the golden fall against the velvet of the sofa. He wanted to stroke it. And so he did – just a light hand, stroking that lovely head. Illya’s eyes were watching him. 

“Go to sleep,” Illya said, but he took Napoleon’s hand in his. He shut his eyes again. 

The pain of the muscle spasm subsided eventually, but sleep eluded him. He watched Illya sleep instead, and in the quiet hours he considered their options should U.N.C.L.E. cut them loose. Cut Illya loose, technically, but it amounted to the same thing. The KGB would come for Illya, and the CIA would come for him. He was reasonably confident they could elude one of those agencies, but both of them? He was not so sure. He knew what the gambit would be, too. Illya’s rescue operation had exposed their weakness. Each would be offered the safety of the other, if they would turn themselves in. Come back to the fold, the CIA might say to him, and Illya Kuryakin will be a free man. We will call off our assassins. Granted, they couldn’t speak for the KGB, but one team of assassins to fight instead of two was a considerable improvement in the odds. The KGB would make Illya the same offer, about him. 

He fell asleep when dawn had begun to gray the corners of the room, and he woke some hours later to find that Illya had piled yet another blanket on him. Across the room, another endless round of chess solitaire had begun, and Illya’s face was frowning and thoughtful. Napoleon closed his eyes and slipped back into sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

And so when he trusted his acuity of both mind and body, he picked up the phone and called the number he ought to have called before. He waited until Illya was out of the apartment, on another quest for culinary horrors. He didn’t say anything when he heard the click on the other end. 

“I’ve been expecting your call,” the crisp voice said. 

“Have you,” he said. 

“As luck would have it, I’m planning on being in Florence tomorrow. I’m assuming you’d like to chat?”

“A chat would be lovely.”

“Excellent then. Shall we say ten, for coffee? There’s a coffee shop not too far from—”

“Yes, I know the place you’re going to suggest. That’s fine. Looking forward to it.”

“Couldn’t be more pleased. See you then, Solo.” And he rang off.

At nine-thirty the next morning, Napoleon dressed himself in a subdued suit and examined himself in the mirror. A trifle too thin still, but looking at least like an approximation of himself. “What are you doing?” Illya said, poking his head in the door.

“Getting dressed.”

“Yes I see that. We are formal for breakfast today?”

“I’m going out, actually.” He saw Illya cross his arms, saw the intake of breath for the argument, and he held up his hand. “Peril. Please. I just need a walk. I just need to feel. . . less of an invalid. I’m much stronger now, and frankly I could use the change of scene. I’m going to walk the block, nothing more. You’re welcome to follow me, but I’d prefer if you didn’t. I might feel less like a Pomeranian who has snapped the leash.”

Illya gave a snort a that. “More like German shepherd who has chewed through leash and several bystanders,” he said, but Napoleon saw his victory in the resigned set of his shoulders.

“Shall I bring you something?” 

“I don’t eat breakfast.”

“Most important meal of the day, Peril. Don’t neglect your health.” He tugged at his cuffs and pocketed the apartment key. 

“I bought cane, if you want it. No don’t bother, I know what you are going to say, you’re fine.”

“Actually,” he said. The cane might be a nice touch. “Yes, I think I’ll take you up on that. Prudence and all that. Besides, it’s bound to make me look very distinguished and mysterious. Hand it over.”

Illya fetched him the cane, a handsome piece with sterling fittings. “Very nice,” he said, examining it. “Any secret compartments?”

Illya frowned. “Is cane, what are you talking about.”

“And it wouldn’t happen to come equipped with a tracking device?”

Illya looked blank. Napoleon handed him back the cane. Illya sighed. He unscrewed one of the fittings and removed a small electronic disc. “There,” he said. “Happy?”

“And the other one.”

Illya scowled, unscrewed the second fitting. He removed that device too. Napoleon beamed. “There, wasn’t that easy? Honesty and trust, Peril, the foundations of any good working relationship.”

“Mm hm. Honesty like, I am taking walk around the block?”

Napoleon met his eyes. They stood in silence for a bit. “This I have to do,” he said finally, and “I know,” Illya said. As he walked out the door of his room his hand brushed against Illya’s. 

“Watch yourself, Cowboy,” Illya whispered. 

“I always do,” he whispered back.

“And there is still physical therapy this afternoon,” Illya called, as he locked the front door behind him, and Napoleon groaned. 

He arrived late to the coffee shop, as he had intended. It allowed Waverly to see the full effect of the cane, which he leaned on rather more than he needed, at this point. “Your recovery is progressing apace, I see,” he said, as Napoleon sat with care at the little table Waverly had secured for them. It was all the way at the back of the coffee shop, and Waverly would have swept it for bugs. One or two of the customers were likely U.N.C.L.E. operatives, but he didn’t care enough to figure out which ones. 

“Call off your dogs,” he said to Waverly.

Waverly was stirring his coffee, and his polite mask had become a grave one. “There are things you think that are untrue,” he said. 

“Really. Enlighten me.”

“You think I might have been responsible for your capture. You think I refused to send an extraction team. You think that at the very least I left you to die at Petrushka’s hands and at the worst, I colluded to put you there. You think I am currently playing administrative havoc with Kuryakin’s career as a way of punishing him for thwarting my plans to do away with you.”

Napoleon was silent. Waverly set down his coffee spoon. He studied his coffee. He looked tired, and Napoleon wondered if he had slept. “It’s what I would be thinking, at any rate, were I in your shoes.”

Napoleon was still silent. Waverly was going to be very good at this, which he had known. The English always were. “It’s what I would be thinking,” he continued, “had I had the terrible run of luck with employers that you have had.”

“The CIA wasn’t so bad. Certainly beat hell out of prison.” 

“A different kind of prison, I expect. At any rate, I was rather hoping I might tell you a story. It might interest you to know this is not a story anyone knows, or at least, not anyone currently associated with U.N.C.L.E. It’s not much of a story, but the outline of it is that I joined my country’s intelligence services when I was just out of Oxford, terribly hungry to serve, quite eaten up with patriotism and idealism. That’s not really a type of person you’ve ever been, I know, and doubtless you have contempt for that sort of thing – you’re much more of a pragmatist. Kuryakin might know what I’m talking about. However.”

He bit into a biscuit and used it to stir his coffee. Napoleon wondered if he was ever going to actually drink the coffee. “I served with distinction. I had a partner with whom I served. We were very close.” He hesitated. “You know what it can be, to feel that kind of closeness with a comrade. A partner for whom you would die.”

Napoleon said nothing. If it was an opening, he wasn’t going to take it. “The danger, of course, of having a partner for whom you would die is that the world just might take you up on it. And that is what happened. He died. To protect me, in fact. The result of my own blunder. He was by far the more skilled spy. Not that I was terrible at the business, you understand.”

This time the silence was mutual. Waverly looked like he might not say more, like he was possibly done. When he spoke again, his voice sounded more tired. Abstracted. “I know what it is, is my only point. I know what it is to feel that kind of loyalty. My idea, in becoming one of the founders of the United Network, was this: that there might be a place where that kind of loyalty was respected. Where it was not seen as a threat to one’s other loyalties. But what you must understand is, there is a limit to my power. I did not betray you. But the ones who did worked hard to make it look as though I did. You have no reason to believe me. There is nothing in your experience that would make you believe me. Nonetheless what I am telling you is true. Do you believe that? No, please don’t answer, please just listen a bit more.”

Napoleon crossed his arms. He wondered if anyone was ever going to bring him any coffee. 

“You and Kuryakin are my agents,” he continued, “under my direct command. That means, according to the code by which I play, that I would willingly die before I would let harm come to either one of you. You are not pawns to be expended, you are men with moral agency and the wits to use that agency, and that is why you work for me. That is why you are allowed the latitude you are in the field. Before I abandoned you to die in a godforsaken dungeon I would put a bullet in my own head. That is another thing I’m going to ask you to believe.”

He had never seen Waverly like this. He did not have the framework to understand what Waverly was talking about, or that men like him might staff the upper levels of any intelligence service. He wondered if Waverly had enemies. Almost certainly he did. 

“At any rate.” Waverly was folding his napkin. “Kuryakin’s credentials, not to mention his weapons, will be restored to him tomorrow. That’s why I’m in Florence, actually. This inquiry never had anything to do with him, but was all about kneecapping me a bit.”

“Did it work?”

Waverly’s smile was bleak. “It did not. My power might be limited, but it is still formidable. And there are advantages to being second cousin to the Queen.”

“Are you indeed?”

“Yes, in fact. And one more thing: doubtless you have both been considering your options, should your arrangement with the United Network be severed. Doubtless you have safehouses. Also doubtless, those are less secure than you might imagine. Should you be in need of such a place in the future, for any reason, I want you to remember what I’m about to write down. I shall dissolve it in this waterglass. Can you remember it?”

Waverly took out a fountain pen and scrawled on a piece of paper plucked from his jacket. _Ethelden Manor_ , he wrote down. _Little Yorling, Cambridgeshire._

“What on earth is that?” Napoleon said. 

“The residence of the Earl of Brinscote. That’s me, by the way, thanks to the death of my older brother, mourned most by those who knew him least. I can promise you that Ethelden is a fortress, and I mean that quite literally. The CIA, the KGB, Mossad, the Queen herself and all her corgis might batter at the gates, to no avail. I don’t reside there, since my business takes me elsewhere, and I prefer the city anyway. But should either of you ever be in need of it, that is where you must go. Do you understand me?”

Napoleon met his eyes, and weighed him. “I think I do,” he said. 

“You understand I’m not offering you the main house. There’s a keeper’s cottage on the grounds where you would be quite comfortable.”

“Of course.”

Waverly looked like he was about to say more, but thought better of it. He rose, and offered his hand to Napoleon, who shook it. “What was his name,” Napoleon said.  
Waverly was silent. Almost Napoleon felt remorse for doing it, but remorse was not something he was given to. 

“Arthur,” he said. 

“Like the king.”

The barest spasm of a shadow, and it was gone. “Indeed,” he said. 

“Well,” Napoleon said, rising. “I shall relay the good news to Kuryakin, with your permission of course. And I trust the second reason for your presence in the city is that you have an assignment for us?”

“You trust wisely, Solo. And I don’t mind letting you know what it is as soon as possible, because it is of the highest priority and must begin immediately. Your assignment is this: mandated medical recovery, for the next four weeks. You are to do nothing but rest, and relax, and enjoy yourself. I’m sorry to say that based on excellent progress reports, Kuryakin remains in charge of your physical therapy. My condolences.”

“I thought you were a man of honor.”

“Even honor must bow to expedience. And Kuryakin’s therapy appears to be most expedient,” he said, with an approving glance up and down Napoleon. He shrugged on his overcoat – an affectation, given the weather, but Napoleon was not the man to grudge anyone their affectations. 

“Oh, and Solo?”

“Yes?”

“There was an extraction team in place. I had no official authorization for one, but I had managed. Kuryakin was scheduled to lead it. He disagreed with the timing, said we could not afford to wait the fourteen hours I deemed necessary for the team’s safety. That is why he went in alone. I can’t say he was wrong, given the condition in which we found you. No one can be happier than I to have been disobeyed.”

“Well I think we can promise to keep you very happy, in the future.”

Waverly chuckled. “I’m sure of it,” he said. “Lovely cane, by the way.” And he wandered off, with the aimless, slightly dotty air of the Englishman abroad that was his best cover, still nibbling on the biscuit he had plucked from the table. 

Four weeks of vacation they had just been handed. An entire month. He had never actually had a vacation, unless one counted brief spells of incarceration, which he did not. What would they do on a vacation? What did people do, on vacations? Go look at art, perhaps? It was hard to enjoy himself in a museum; their security lapses were always too evident, and Napoleon spent the whole time plotting how easy the theft would be of any given object. Possibly a beach was a better idea. He wondered if he could persuade Illya to consider a beach. 

Of course, who was he kidding. His four weeks of vacation –the only vacation he had yet had in his adult life, by the by – was going to be spent hunched over a metal bowl puking his guts out while his prison warden shouted _up up up up up_ with increasingly demented cheer. 

Napoleon took his time on his route home, just to provoke Illya.


	5. Chapter 5

“This is boring,” Napoleon whispered. “Can’t we just sit in the plaza and get drunk like normal tourists?”

“Shh,” Illya said. “I am trying to listen.”

Napoleon rolled his eyes. He had made a terrible, fatal error. A catastrophic one. He had made the mistake of mentioning to Illya that they were being given a vacation, and Illya’s eyes had lit up. The next morning Napoleon had awakened to piles of guidebooks and maps spread on the breakfast table, and Illya earnestly poring over each one of them, making notes on his pad as he went.

“What are you doing?” he said, reaching for the marmalade.

“Planning our vacation.”

“All right, where are we going?”

“Here.”

“Sorry?”

Illya set down the guidebook. “Think of it,” he said. “We go to beautiful cities all the time. We go to Rome, to Istanbul, to Paris, to Cairo. And what do we do? We work. Do we ever see the beautiful things in these cities? No we do not.”

“So your solution is what?”

“My solution is, we see Florence. Do you realize, Cowboy, how much art there is here? How much we have not seen? The architecture alone—we could spend weeks. At last we get to be normal tourists.”

Napoleon munched a meditative toast triangle. “I think our body count might be a bit too high to be considered normal tourists. I always enjoy myself better in a city where I haven’t killed anyone before.”

Illya looked thoughtful. “That is not going to leave us many cities.”

“It won’t, and that’s a fact.”

“So. . . you do not want to be tourist.” And Illya had looked so mournful, so dejected, that Napoleon had brushed off his toast crumbs and caved.

“Well, why not,” he had said. “I’m willing to give anything a try once.” And that was how he ended up in his current hellish predicament: shuffling through the Duomo for hours on end while their tour guide – a tour guide, no less! – gave rambling lectures on every blessed piece of travertine in the whole blessed edifice, lectures as notable for their mind-numbing boredom as their wild inaccuracy. 

“Wrong,” Napoleon had taken to saying, leaning in to whisper it into Illya’s ear. “He’s completely wrong about that, the Duomo was built atop the church of Santa Reparata, not Santa Berengaria. And it was sixth century, not seventh.”

“Shhh,” Illya said, for the forty-ninth time. 

“If you wanted a tour, why didn’t you just ask me? Or anyone who knows anything about art?” 

“Shut up or I step on your balls.”

“But no, just because he wears a ridiculous badge, you believe he is somehow an authority. That’s the Soviet in you, all over again. He’s not even Florentine! His accent is completely Milanese, I can’t believe what I’m hearing.”

“You said, we can be tourist. You agreed. So, you have choice. You shut arrogant mouth, or I staple it shut for you.”

He quieted at Illya’s ferocious glare, and he dutifully followed the rest of the tour, sighing ostentatiously every now and then, but trying to behave. And after a while he began to enjoy himself, once he managed to tune out the tour guide’s excruciating blather. It wasn’t that the tour was enjoyable, or the other sweaty rumpled tourists around them, mindlessly gawping at the artifacts of a culture they couldn’t begin to understand. It was that he began to enjoy Illya’s enjoyment. He stopped looking at the Duomo, or their fellow tourists, and began studying Illya – the way he would concentrate when he looked up at a window, the small furrow in his brows, as though a piece of art were an equation that he had to solve. As though it held an answer he was supposed to tease out. A chess game. Yes, that was it; he made the same face when he was studying a chess board. 

After a while Napoleon wandered over to a postcard stand near the entrance and bought a few, just to have something to scribble on. There was a pencil in his jacket pocket, and while Illya continued to follow his tour, Napoleon leaned against a pillar and sketched. At first he didn’t know what he wanted to sketch, but his fingers knew. It had been so long since he had let his fingers wander like this, let himself see through his fingers in the old way. He had forgotten the deep pleasure of it, the slow uncoiling of things within. He glanced up at Illya’s step, sliding the card inside his jacket.

“All set then?”

“Yes. Now we go to Uffizi.”

“Peril. Have you taken a single picture with that camera?”

Illya glanced down at the large black monstrosity strung about his neck. “No. Is for looking like tourist. No need for pictures when I have professionally trained memory.”

“Well, if you don’t take at least an occasional picture it’s going to look decidedly odd.”

Illya shrugged. “Two men sightseeing together – we are already odd. Come on, I want to beat lunchtime crowd.”

Napoleon sighed and fell in beside Illya. They stepped into bright sunlight, blinking a bit after the dimness of the cathedral, and set out across the wide piazza. Napoleon adjusted his sunglasses, glancing at his companion. “You’ve seen him, yes?” he asked.

“Our friend? Of course.”

“What are your thoughts? One of Waverly’s?”

“I think that is – what is expression? – best case scenario.”

“Mm. He’s alone, interestingly. More likely to be KGB, in that case.”

“I am aware.”

“I think I’ll just drop back and take care of our little problem, then rejoin you at the Uffizi.”

“No,” Illya said sharply. 

“You have a better idea?”

“Better idea is, we go to museum.”

“And allow ourselves to be tailed all afternoon? Foolish in the extreme.”

Illya’s jaw was working – tightening, clenching. “Then I will be the one to take care of him.”

Napoleon stopped dead in the piazza. He covered by reaching for a cigarette from the case in his pocket, lighting it. He shook out the match and flicked it at a pigeon. “I’m well enough to do my damned job, Peril,” he said, and he was quite proud of how calm his voice sounded, how smothered his rage. 

“Yes,” Illya said. “It is not you I worry about.”

Napoleon frowned at that. “Then what—”

“Please. I ask this. Can we—can we go to museum? Please. Let us go to museum, look at art. Ignore problem for now. All right?”

He dragged off his cigarette and pretended to study a flock of pigeons on the battistero roof. “All right,” he said evenly. “The Uffizi it is. But no more blasted tour guides. Let me show you the things that are worth seeing.”

“Good,” Illya said. “Come, we should hurry. Fat man on tour said he was meeting family at the Uffizi, I do not want to be near him. Very gassy.”

The Uffizi was less irritating than the Duomo had been – not only did Illya stay true to his word and dispense with the tour guide, but the crowds stayed confined to the main galleries, which allowed the two of them to wander at will in the smaller, more interesting side galleries. Illya actually appeared interested in what he was telling him, too – nodding at all the right places, frowning intently at Titians and Botticellis like they were suspects he was interrogating, and out of whom he hoped to shake loose some answers. 

He stopped for a long time in front of a Bronzino, the portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi. Napoloeon didn’t know why that one should fascinate him so, but evidently it did. Illya scowled at it with growing dissatisfaction.

“Why does she look like that,” he said.

“Ah. Yes, the challenge of the direct gaze. It’s one of Bronzino’s favorite poses, not least because it emphasizes the subject’s sense of superiority.”

“She looks like she is the one looking at me.”

Napoleon smiled. “She does at that. The book she has open is intended to indicate the degree of her learning, and her husband, the eminent humanist Bartolomeo Panciatichi, was—”

“There is something on her necklace. What does it say?” Illya was squinting, trying to lean closer.

“Amour dure sans fin,” Napoleon murmured.

Illya glanced at him. “Love never ends? Why would it say that? She is alone in the painting. Is not romantic picture.”

“I’ve never really thought about it. It’s a common enough sentiment, I suppose.”

“But do you think it is true?” Illya was back to staring at Lucrezia. 

“Do I think what is true?”

“What it says on her necklace. Her face does not look like she believes it is true, to me.”

He met Lucrezia’s uncomfortable gaze. Glanced at Illya, who was still frowning at her. A group of schoolchildren came through, and Illya moved away. 

They wandered through a few more of the portrait galleries, waiting out the afternoon rains outside. Their tail was still there. Neither of them wondered aloud if it was one of Petrushka’s, but he knew they were both thinking it. In the classical vase gallery, Napoleon pretended to be absorbed in a black-figure krater, leaning in next to Illya.

“We’ll have to split up,” he said. 

“Yes,” Illya said. His jaw was tight again. 

“Why don’t you draw him off. I’ll wait. Circle back when you can.”

Illya’s eyes on his were grave. “You mean this?”

“I do.”

“Spasíbo,” Illya whispered.

“Bud ostorόzhen,” Napoleon said, with a small smile. _Be careful_. Illya had slipped away in the next breath, before the words were even out of his mouth. 

Napoleon took his time wandering the rest of the galleries, making sure their friend had indeed been alone. When he was satisfied, he sat in the piazza nearby and smoked, losing himself in thought. If there were anyone out there to watch, he would be highly visible. But there was no sign of anyone other than the children who came to splash in the fountain. One little girl looked at him warily, and he smiled, which only seemed to increase her probably justified alarm. He took the long way back to their hotel, mindful of his sightlines the whole time. No sign he was being followed. 

He should never have let Illya go off on his own. If that had been an attempt to separate them, to draw one of them away from the other, they had fallen into the simplest of all traps with pathetic ease. He had a brief horrific flash of Illya in Petrushka’s clutches: Illya tied and hanging limp, Illya’s body beaten and broken, Illya’s hoarse screams. His chest was pounding by the time he clicked open the door of their suite. Illya was sitting out on the balcony.

“Fast work,” Napoleon said. 

“Yes. CIA, I think.”

“Interesting.” He tossed his jacket on a chair and went back inside to get himself a drink. He downed one before he came back out, just to still the small tremor of his hand. He had been so convinced he had made a mistake, letting Illya go after their tail. So convinced that it was Petrushka, that Illya would be taken. 

When he came back out onto the balcony, Illya had rifled through his jacket and was looking at his sketches. “Don’t suppose a conversation about private property would do any good,” Napoleon sighed. “You being a communist and all.”

He set down a drink for Illya as well. Illya looked up.

“You drew these,” he said.

“Yes.”

“This. . . this is what you see?”

Napoleon hesitated. “Yes.”

Illya swallowed. He was still studying the drawings: sketch after sketch of Illya himself. Illya’s profile, the light from the clerestory angling across his face. Illya turning aside, frowning at something. Illya’s mouth, lifted in a small smile. Close-ups of the fall of Illya’s hair, of the lines around his eyes. Illya’s hands, over and over. 

“It is beautiful,” Illya said. “The drawing, I mean. You. . . have a gift.” He sounded abstracted. He set the postcards back on the table. “There is something I have not told you.”

Napoleon sat. In truth he was glad to; he would prefer Illya not know how much the day’s sightseeing had tired him. “All right,” he said. “I’m listening.”

Illya was frowning, his elbows resting on his knees. He looked like he was struggling for the words. “I have not told you everything,” he said. “About why Waverly wanted inquiry. About what happened.”

Napoleon sat silently. Illya was studying the tiled floor. “I made mistake,” he said. “I thought you were dead.”

“Peril. Assuming my death was hardly a mistake, it was a statistical proba—”

“No,” he said sharply. “I mean when I found you. The place they had you, it was very cold. You were. . . very cold. Unconscious. Not moving. I tried to find a pulse. I thought that I—but I made mistake. Your respiration, heart rate—all very slow. If I had stopped to think, if I had not been. . . but I was not careful. I thought you were dead.”

Illya looked up. “I wonder if you can know what that means,” he said. “You think, perhaps, it was my old trouble, that I was having episode, that I was. . . what is word in my file? Psychotic. But I was not. I was not angry. Have you ever lost everything in your life, in one moment? It is strange feeling, to have nothing left to lose. To lose it all, and know it is not coming back to you. There is a kind of. . . peace, about it.”

Napoleon said nothing. Could not have, even if he had tried. “So then I made second mistake,” Illya continued. “After the first one. I left you there, and I went into the rest of Petrushka’s complex. I left you, when I should have been helping you. Left you vulnerable. And I killed them all. Not because I was angry, or because I wanted revenge. I don’t remember feeling anything like that. I only remember feeling very calm. And the killing. . . I cannot describe the joy it brought me. How glad I was to do it. Killing, it is a job, it is what we must sometimes do. This was different. It brought me such. . . pleasure, to kill those men.”

Illya paused for a while, his eyes far away. “Fifteen days,” he said at last. “That is how long Petrushka had you. I will tell you a thing, Napoleon Solo. It is not possible to tell yourself a lie for fifteen days. Fifteen hours, yes. For a few days, even. But not for fifteen days. I knew things about myself in those fifteen days that I had not known before. Every hour that you were gone, I learned something new about myself.”

“I had the better end of the bargain,” Napoleon murmured.

“Don’t say that. No. You think I do not know what Petruskha did to you?”

“Peril, it wasn’t nearly as bad as you’re imagining. It was hardly—”

“He sent recordings,” Illya said, and Napoleon’s words stuttered from underneath him. 

“Yes,” he continued. “He sent some to Waverly, of the things he was doing to you, of. . . you. But some he sent only to me. You think I do not know. Dorogόy, you think I do not?”

Napoleon wiped his hand across his face. He got up and paced the balcony. “God damn him to hell,” he said. “God damn him. Illya, listen to me. He wanted you to hear all of that. He primed the pump. Everything that you did, is exactly what he intended you to do. He prepared you for that from the beginning. He loaded you like a weapon, knowing you would go in there and do exactly what you did. Knowing it would reflect on Waverly, knowing your actions could have brought down Waverly and shifted the balance of power in U.N.C.L.E. That was the point from the beginning. That was his goal.”

Illya studied him in silence. After a while he leaned back and shut his eyes. “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “I have known that for some time.”

“He used us both.”

“He is working with someone in U.N.C.L.E.”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Damn,” Illya swore. “We have to talk to Waverly.”

“My wager is he knows already. Has known from the first.”

“That is why he did not want me on extraction team,” Illya murmured. “He was not deferring extraction, he was planning extraction but did not want me to know anything about it, because I wanted to be on it, I would never have allowed— _fuck_ ,” he swore. He must really be off his game, if he was swearing in English. Illya was the one pacing now.

“Waverly,” he said. “The chances are he is in danger. We must communicate with him before anything else.”

“I agree.” Napoleon sat in thoughtful silence. “What did you mean, earlier?”

“When?”

“Before. When you said that you needed to be the one to go after our tail, you said I was not the one you were worried about.”

Illya tapped his finger on his thigh. “You are better now,” he said. “Still weak, which you think I do not see, but better. Better every day, maybe.”

“So why on earth would you—”

“It was four, maybe five minutes that I thought you were dead,” he said. “Maybe less than that. If you have not lived such a thing, you cannot know. What I am saying is, I cannot go back to that time. I would give anything before I go back to that time. In my head, maybe it is always that time, forever. You are better. I am not.”

Napoleon considered. “So that’s why you wanted to be the one to take care of our little friend. To make sure I did not place myself at any risk.”

Illya nodded. “I see,” Napoleon said. “Well, you’ve opened my eyes, Peril. I admit I did not really see before how my torture was in fact all about your torture, but I see it now, thank you for clarifying. I confess I had neglected to understand that my own injuries, be they physical or psychological, were really nothing to your suffering.”

Illya had gone white, his jaw stiff. “That is not—”

“You have a decision to make, it seems to me. You either want something to protect, or you want a partner. Both are elemental human needs, and you might very well decide you prefer to work with someone who relies on you to coddle them like a beloved Dachshund and aim all your considerable emotional disorders in their direction. That’s perfectly fine. But it won’t be me. So why don’t you make a decision which one you want, and then tell Waverly what it is.”

Illya didn’t look like he was breathing, he was so stiff in his chair. “Poshόl na xúi,” he breathed.

“And fuck you right back, Peril,” Napoleon said. His rage was light and exhilarating in his veins, and he was dimly aware it was unjust, but he didn’t much care. He slammed the balcony door behind him, pleased at the strength in his grip. Couldn’t have done that even a week ago. He had a guilty stab of awareness that all the physical therapy Illya had forced on him probably had something to do with that, but he pushed it down. 

He didn’t slam his bedroom door, but that was only because he wanted the moral victory of not being the petulant one. Illya, apparently, had no such worries, because after a few minutes he could hear the reverberating slam of Illya’s door through the walls of the suite. The window panes in his room rattled.


	6. Chapter 6

That night, he was back in Petrushka’s dungeon. 

It was his first real dream where he was back there. If he had had those dreams before, he didn’t remember it. Possibly it was because before, most of his sleep had been in a narcotic-induced haze, and now that he was off all the painkillers except the occasional one, his dreams were more vivid. But for whatever reason, he was back there. He was hanging from the hooks, and Petrushka was scraping a knife along the edge of his ribs, that low wicked laughter in his ear. The blood that ran out of him was hot and bubbling, and it burned him. In his dream he was doing what he had never done in the dungeon: he was begging. Begging for it to stop, begging to be anywhere but here, begging for mercy. The weak, spineless thing he had poured all his strength into not being, in that dungeon. No matter what, Petruskha would never hear him beg. But in his dream, it was different. In his dream, Waverly was there, and Illya. They wandered in and out of the dungeon, and Illya was idly eating an apple. They couldn’t hear his screams, or didn’t care. And the knife kept cutting deeper and deeper, was working its way into his body, digging into him, burning him like his blood burned him, but his screams only made Petrushka laugh more, only made the knife burrow deeper. Now the knife was cutting into his arm, severing his arm from his body, and Petrushka had his assistants there and they were trying to hold him down, trying to rip his arm off him, but he was fighting, he wouldn’t let them, couldn’t let them.

“ _Napoleon!_ ” shouted a voice he knew, and he fought clear of the thing holding him and swung with his fist, swung with all the recovered force in his body. In an instant he was awake. He was back in his room, and Illya was on the floor, cradling a hand to his bleeding face. The lamp had rolled onto the floor, shattered. 

“Shit,” Napoleon swore. He leaped down beside Illya, who was glaring at him from behind his hand. “Christ almighty. What on earth were you doing?”

“Trying to help you!”

“By assaulting me in my bed?”

“By keeping you from waking the entire hotel! You wake me up shouting, what am I supposed to do?”

“For heaven’s sake, you don’t wake someone from a nightmare by pummeling them, you ought to—”

“You are the one who hit me!”

The man had a point. Napoleon sighed. “Come on,” he said. “Up you go. Let me take a look at that.”

Illya let himself be led to the bathroom, and he sat obediently on the toilet while Napoleon ran some warm water over a rag and dabbed at the admittedly excellent upper cut he had delivered. “You have to admit,” he said, tilting his head as he worked, “this is quite the testament to your physical therapy regimen. No no, don’t bother, I can guess the rejoinder to that one, I think it’s ground we’ve already covered today. I promise to go fuck myself directly.”

Illya sighed. “Just put some alcohol on it and get it over with.”

“You and the Russian foreplay.” 

He swabbed the area with care. Illya was going to have quite the bruise across that cheekbone. He hadn’t expected the blow, and hadn’t been able to ward against it. There might be a hairline orbital fracture there as well. “Sorry about it,” he said. 

“I’m sure.”

“And. . . for what it’s worth, I’m sorry about the other too. For what I said.”

Illya made a shrugging motion. It was a little constrained, and he wondered if perhaps he had fallen on that shoulder. He had been pitched off the bed with some apparent force. There might be a bruise there tomorrow too. He wondered what he had been shouting, if anything.

Illya winced, and he realized he had been holding the swab of alcohol on the wound while he thought. “Sorry,” he said again. Then he pitched the cotton ball in the wastebasket. “I was an ass,” he said. “I don’t know who to be angry at, but it’s sure as hell not you.”

“I know.”

Napoleon extended his left hand, so his palm was parallel to the tiled floor. Held it there. Illya watched the hand along with him. Together they watched the faint tremor. Barely detectable. But always there. “It doesn’t go away,” Napoleon said. 

“I know that too. Is not your gun hand.”

Napoleon put his hand down. “And how often have we had to shoot with our left, in a tight situation? Often enough, when once is all it takes to make a mistake. I’m not safe in the field with you. You know it and I know it.”

“I’m not safe in the field without you. That is other thing you know and I know.”

Napoleon leaned back against the sink and closed his eyes. It was probably true. Even mildly incapacitated, he was still the best shot in the agency. His unsteady left was probably the equal of most operatives’ right. He was still Illya’s best chance at living, out in the field. Not that either of their chances were excellent.

“You need to go back to bed,” Illya said. “Come on, let’s go. You have big day tomorrow, we have Palazzo Vecchio and Medici Chapel. Maybe you want to hit me again. Come on, in bed, off you go.”

He let Illya lead him, and he sat on the bed in the dark while Illya fussed with his blankets a bit. Not that he would need them. He was wearing only pajama bottoms, but even that was too much; the air at nights was as thick as the air in the day, and as warm. Napoleon reached for his hand and caught it, and Illya froze. “Listen,” he said. “About the. . . nightmare, or whatever it was. You were right. It won’t do to have me rousing the entire hotel. Odds are it might happen again. Possibly you should. . . lie down with me, just in case it starts to happen again. For security purposes.”

Illya was quiet. Napoleon’s chest was pounding. “That is what you want?” Illya asked.

“It is.” 

Napoleon pulled back the blankets and got under the covers. Illya slid in beside him. He lay there stiffly, staring at the ceiling.

Napoleon lay in silence beside him, considering. “The problem is,” he began, and stopped.

“Yes?”

“The problem is, you might need to stop me before things really. . .get bad. Just to make sure. It might be hard to tell unless you’re quite close.”

Illya turned and propped on his hand. “How close?”

“I think. . . very close.”

He moved closer, his arm right up against Napoleon’s, his eyes, his mouth, so close. So close. “Yes,” Napoleon said, his mouth going dry. “Except. . .”

“Except what?”

“Can we. . . like before?”

Illya shifted so he was snugged against Napoleon, facing him, and wrapped him in his arms. They were being so careful with their hands. Napoleon brought his hand to rest on the back of Illya’s head. Began stroking him with his thumb, just small circles in his hair. It was as close as they had ever been, face to face like this. Napoleon felt a little drunk with it. He could feel his body’s stir of response at Illya’s nearness. Knew Illya could feel it too. Illya’s eyes were puddle of black, only the barest rim of blue. 

“Are you teasing me?” Illya whispered.

“Nikogdá, dorogόy,” Napoleon whispered back. _Never, dear one._

“Just to be clear,” Illya said softly. “I don’t care who knocks at that door, we are not getting up to open it. I don’t care if it is Waverly, I don’t care if he has Queen of England with him, and behind her is head of KGB, and President of United States. I don’t care about any of them. They can all go fuck themselves.”

Napoleon smiled, and rolled so he was directly on top of Illya. He lifted Ilya’s arms over his head and pinned them down, stretched himself fully on top. He had said he wasn’t teasing, and he meant it, but he was teasing a little – teasing these moments out. He kept Illya’s wrists firmly pinned. There was no more blue in Illya’s eyes, they were all black. God, the feel of that body against his. It was like a drug, like heroin in his veins. 

“What now, Cowboy?” Illya whispered. 

Napoleon began shifting back and forth, just infinitesimally, but it tugged a groan from Illya. He had to stop at that groan, because it shuddered every nerve in his body. It made his balls ache and his cock fill. He had to hear Illya make that noise again. They were breathing fast. 

Illya’s eyes weren’t moving from his, and now he was shifting too, pressing upward just a little bit, every time Napoleon moved. Rubbing up against his cock. Their thin pajama bottoms weren’t leaving much to the imagination. They were moving just the smallest bit faster. God, he wanted Illya’s hands to grab his ass and just fucking grind him already. 

Their breathing was synched. It was loud in the quiet room. A million things they should maybe be talking about, but first their bodies needed this. Ached for this. 

“Let go of my wrists.” Illya’s breath just a gust of air.

“Why?”

“So I can touch you.”

“What do you want to touch?”

“Everything.”

Illya’s hands did exactly what he wanted them to, which was grab his ass. Dig his fingers in, strong and hard. Napoleon groaned at it. They were grinding harder now. Rubbing against Illya’s cock was like humping a super-heated metal girder. “Fuck,” Napoleon panted. Dug his fingers into Illya’s shoulders.

Somewhere this plan had seriously de-railed. He was five seconds from coming in his pajamas. Illya’s hands were up and down his back now. He sat up, let his legs straddle Illya, and this put their cocks in new alignment. Napoleon was thrusting against him now. Illya was panting open-mouthed. “Davaí, da,” Illya moaned. “Ach da, davaí, davaí. . .”

“Illya,” he groaned. “Fuck I can’t—fuck—”

"Want you—want you so much, God, you do not know—davaí, davaí. . ."

Never had he been caught short, not since he was a sweaty-palmed eighteen-year-old. But Christ, it felt so good. So good. He could no more stop his orgasm than he could stop an avalanche. He tipped his head back and groaned at it. Illya’s body, fuck, Illya’s perfect body. 

“Lyubími,” Illya cried out. _Beloved_. Napoleon panted, open-mouthed, trembling, soaking his pants as he came in a hot delicious rush. He shook and thrust, his cock spilling again and again, his spine quaking with it. Thank God for Illya’s hands holding him upright. God what he must look like, how Illya must laugh at—

He was being hurled against the mattress as Illya flipped them, Illya’s hands shaking and desperate, Illya’s body pressed to his so hard, so hard. “Bozhe, pomogí menyé,” he groaned, _God help me_ , and Napoleon could feel him coming, could feel the sudden hot wet of it through their soaking pajamas, as Illya thrust and rode him through a climax that shuddered him, that wrung another spike of pleasure from his exhausted body.

They lay athwart the bed limp, destroyed, cum-covered. Their breathing was so loud, like they had run around the block. Like they had run to the Duomo and back. He was experiencing stroke symptoms, his vision occluding, but then he realized that no, that was just his head tipped upside down over the edge of the mattress where Illya had rolled them. He tried to being himself more or less back onto the bed and Illya was trying to help him with clumsy fingers. 

“Prostí menyá, lyubími,” Illya was murmuring, _forgive me, beloved_ , and Napoleon gave a low laugh. 

“Well,” he said. “I suppose that was predictable.”

“How so?” Illya rolled his head to him, and he was slurring, adorably and beautifully sex-drunk. 

Words were swooping away from him, English, Russian, it was just all so complicated. “We have. . . waited a while,” he panted. 

“Is no excuse,” Illya said. “That only means we had time to think, to plan. Hard to think this is best we could do.”

“Is it though,” Napoleon said, and he laughed again, just a tired whuff of air. He managed to roll onto his side, and Illya’s eyes were watching him, smiling gently at him, if a bit blearily. Napoleon brought his hand to brush against Illya’s face, and the smile faded. Illya’s hands were threading through his hair. 

“Come here,” he murmured, and pulled Napoleon’s mouth down to his for the first time.

It had always been part of his worldview that Illya would not be a particularly good kisser. He didn’t know why he thought that, but he did. Possibly because of that relentlessly Soviet education, or possibly he thought someone as powerfully built as Illya would kiss with all the delicacy of a combine thresher. However it was, he had acquired this idea that Illya was something of an anti-sensualist, who might require a bit of guidance and teaching in that department. 

He had been very, very, very wrong. 

Their fingers tangled in each other’s hair, their lips bit and sucked and pressed, their tongues slid and explored and consumed. He had never been so thoroughly kissed in his life. He came up for air and dove back in, wanting more of Illya, and more, and yet more. Their gentle kiss was becoming messier, more urgent. He had a lifetime of tasting to do in Illya’s indescribable mouth. Illya was the one tipping his head back against the mattress, letting Napoleon cradle him as they kissed, and then Napoleon had the brilliant idea that he could kiss as much of Illya’s body as he wanted, and he let his mouth slide to Illya’s perfect jaw and down his throat to taste the skin there.

Illya groaned, his hands caressing Napoleon’s back, his sides, his ass. Napoleon lifted his mouth.

“Don’t stop,” Illya whispered.

“No intention of it, love.” 

He struggled up and untied his pajama bottoms, doing his best to clean himself before pitching them into a corner in disgust. He turned back to Illya, who was watching him hungrily. Illya was letting himself look, so Napoleon stopped and let him. In silence he untied Illya’s pants, got them off him, got him more or less cleaned up. And then he sat back on his heels and let himself look, too.

They spent long minutes with just their eyes, and exploring a bit with their hands. To call Ilya breathtaking was ridiculous understatement. He was a Caravaggio. He was the David, if the David had a cock like. . . well, like Illya’s cock, which was a sight to behold. He lay back down carefully, letting Illya fold him back into his arms, and they resumed kissing, gentle again. Naked together now, for the first time. Flesh to flesh. Illya was stroking his hair, seeking his eyes. 

They spent long minutes in each other’s eyes, saying what needed saying. When the earth had shifted on its axis and begun an entirely different rotation, it took time to adjust. The world would not spin the same way for them again, and he knew it. 

“Is this what you learned, when I was. . . gone,” Napoleon whispered, and Illya nodded against his shoulder, held him tighter. 

After a while their kissing and exploration began to get more intentional. Napoleon could feel his cock stir again, could feel the heaviness build in his groin, the ache. Illya slid a hand down and explored, letting his fingers wander over Napoleon’s cock, learning it, stroking, brushing a finger up and down its hardening length. Getting the feel of Napoleon’s balls in his hand. Napoleon gasped at it. Wanted to roll over onto his back and close his eyes let Illya have his way with him. He brushed his fingers down that burnished golden abdomen and thumbed that glorious cock, watched Illya’s eyes slide shut at it.

He shifted and rolled over on top of Illya, sealing them together again. He put his mouth near Illya’s ear. “Sweetheart,” he said, and he felt the small shiver in Illya’s skin at the endearment. “I don’t know what you’ve done and haven’t done before. In this particular situation, I mean, which is new territory for you. So it’s fine to tell me when you want to stop, or what makes you uncomfortable. All right?”

Illya was nodding. “Yes,” he said. “But territory is. . . not all that new, for me.”

“Oh,” Napoleon said. That was another assumption gone. He was beginning to be a bit disconcerted. 

“One time only,” Illya said. 

Napoleon reared back. “Wait just a minute. Not Volodya the reindeer farmer?”

Illya laughed, and it was beautiful to see – a golden warm laugh, like he hadn’t heard from him in months, or maybe ever. “No, not cousin Volodya, what is wrong with you?” 

Napoleon smiled too, just to see Illya smile. He felt an easing in his chest, like a weight lifting. Now it feels like a vacation, he thought. If only Waverly had known what use they were putting their vacation to. The thought made him laugh again, and then it struck him that actually, Waverly might have known exactly what they would be likely to get up to on their vacation. That might in fact have been the entire point. 

“So, who then?”

Illya arched an eyebrow. “This is really game you want to play?”

“Ah. Good point. On second thought, your business is your business.”

Illya smiled and pulled him down for another kiss. They were finding their rhythm more easily now, learning each other’s mouths. And for all that Illya might have gotten up to no good in the barracks at KGB training or wherever – and he would definitely be working on figuring that one out, that conversation was far from over – he was still willing to wager that there were some things he wasn’t familiar with, and that it might be best to wait on. And in truth. . . in truth he wasn’t as sure of himself as he would like to be. Not after Petrushka.

So they lay sprawled there, in the dark, and they were quiet, and they let their hands do most of the talking. They teased each other, hands on each other’s cocks, exploring. Running out the rein on their control. Napoleon ran a finger down the whole luscious length of Illya – God, that cock – and licked his finger, savoring the taste. Considered bending to suck him, decided against it. 

“The same goes for you,” Illya whispered, his finger twining in Napoleon’s hair. “You tell me when you want to stop, yes?”

He knew why he said it. Illya’s eyes were as transparent to him as ever, even in the dark. Those tapes, the ones Petrushka had sent only to Illya – those would have been tapes of the things Petrushka had done to him when no one else was in the room. Torture for Illya alone. He shut his eyes at the writhe of humiliation he felt, coiling in his chest. He would never ask exactly what Illya had heard. It did not bear thinking about. Could not be thought about. So in answer he slid closer, and gathered both their cocks in his hand, and their second time was like that, face to face as before, but quieter this time. Eyes only on each other. The slide of his wet cock – and Christ almighty, but Illya was making him wet, he had never leaked this much – against Illya’s, the delicious obscenity of it, the nakedness of it.

This time Illya was the one who came first, his breath stuttering, his eyes sliding shut. Fingers clutching at Napoleon. “Is that good, sweetheart?” Napoleon murmured, and then Illya’s groan shuddered the room, and there was hot stickiness coating his fingers. He fucked into it, fucked into Illya’s cock, until his own cock exploded at it. There was so much cum. He had shot so far he had streaked Illya’s chest. When Illya swiped a casual finger in his cum and lifted it to his mouth, Napoleon almost choked at the sight. He fisted a finger in Illya’s hair and plunged his tongue in his mouth, hunting down the taste of their cum.

After that they were truly a mess, so they showered, during which they were of course not able to keep their hands off each other, so it was near dawn before they finally and fully collapsed, lying across the bed like victims of a shipwreck. Napoleon woke to morning streaming across the bed, and Illya’s body, which had somehow wrapped itself around him while they slept. He re-adjusted the arm flung across him, and burrowed deeper into Illya’s embrace. Illya’s eyes fluttered open, then closed again. His grip on Napoleon tightened. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” he managed. 

The corner of Illya’s mouth twitched. “Best to be sure,” he whispered, and they re-settled, anchored on, next to, around, in each other.


	7. Chapter 7

He woke to the full light of afternoon, and a hot wet mouth on his cock. 

“Sweet Christ,” he moaned, his mouth barely awake enough to form the syllables. Illya was between his legs, giving him the blow job of his life. His considerable morning wood was being sucked by a mouth that (here was interesting) clearly knew what it was about. He reached a fumbling hand for Illya, and it landed on a warm golden head. Sunlight striped the bed. 

“My God what are you doing to me,” he said, though it might have come out as something between a groan and a mumble. He spread his legs wider. All the brakes were off in his body, and he was starting to wonder if maybe that was the way it was always going to be, around Illya. 

“This is—please don’t think I’m—unappreciative—but—oh God— _fuck_ —not sure I—can really—last—fuck,” he panted. Illya’s tongue had shifted and now he was deep-throating him. Actually and completely deep-throating him. That was the point where he lost it entirely, and let himself arch off the bed and into Illya’s waiting mouth, the mouth that swallowed all of him. The pulse of his cum took his breath away. He could feel his cock throb against Illya’s lips, feel the swallow of Illya’s throat as he took all of him, and Napoleon cried out. A loud cry, he knew, but Christ, who could blame him? He kept thrusting until his muscles spasmed and locked, and fell back onto the bed drained. He slowly released his death grip on the mattress and he pillow he had apparently been trying to rip apart.

“Fuck,” he managed. “Ill—Illya.”

“Quite the show, Cowboy,” said a husky voice, and he could hear the smirk in it. He would wipe that smirk off, just as soon as he had command of his body again, or the ability to move.

“Convey my thanks to cousin Volodya,” he croaked, and Illya laughed and fell beside him. Napoleon turned his head and met Illya’s eyes, and rested there. How strange to think he had thought him beautiful in the night, when Illya’s true beauty was only seen like this, in sunlight. How foolish that he had thought him like David, when he was clearly Apollo, the sun god himself come down to warm him. 

“How are you feeling?” Illya said, and it was just Illya, his Illya, brushing a hand along his hair, a thumb at his browline, looking at him with such tenderness, such. . . 

“Tired,” he said, because they were in bed together, and there would be no more lies. “Yesterday was. . . a bit much.”

“We stay in bed today, all day.”

“How very selfless of you.”

“Is good medical practice, nothing more.”

“Sorry about this,” Napoleon whispered, stroking a hand on the side of Illya’s face, which had begun to purple up quite brilliantly. He would need to take some painkillers for that.

“You have been wanting to take swing at me for two years now.”

“A bit sorry I wasn’t awake for it.” He leaned over and brushed his mouth against Illya’s, then opened his mouth for a long lazy kiss. Illya’s stubble scratched his face. They were both in need of a shave and several more showers. And Illya was in need of some attention, to judge from the bargepole currently nudging against his thigh. He snaked a hand down between them and tested his grip. 

“D’you wake up like that?” Napoleon murmured.

“No. That is what you do to me.”

“Mm. Talk about good medical practice, this is downright dangerous.” He stroked as he talked, watching the flutter of Illya’s eyes. Illya was breathing fast and accelerating quickly, and spreading his legs a bit, so he figured he would explore a bit. He let his hand cup those heavy balls, and then brush lower. Illya did nothing but groan and spread his legs yet wider. Interesting. But now he was reaching a hand for Napoleon, digging his fingers in, so the time for experimentation was probably later. Illya came on a strangled gasp, quiet as ever.

Afterward Napoleon showered him with kisses, licking and sucking and biting his way across Illya’s body. “What would it take,” he mused, “for you to make some noise?”

“Why don’t you try to find out?”

Napoleon smiled. “I know what it is. It’s all that KGB training. They keep you in barracks and stimulate you for days, hours on end, until you learn how to achieve orgasm with absolutely no noise.”

“You have very inaccurate view of KGB.”

“Oh come now don’t spoil my little fantasy.”

“You have fantasies about KGB?”

“I have fantasies about everything, don’t take it personally.”

“I have fantasies about CIA, but mainly it is about killing Sanders.”

Napoleon went back to kissing his lazy way down Illya’s arm, then up the inside of it, to the sensitive skin there. Illya was just watching him. “One day,” Illya said. “You will tell me your name, yes?”

Napoleon froze. “You know my name,” he said, but Illya’s gaze was level and undeceived. 

“Does not have to be soon. I can wait. But it is not Napoleon Solo. That is name small boy makes up because he wishes it was his name. Is very lovely, but not, I think, your name.”

Napoleon’s jaw hardened. “Was that what the KGB sent you to find out?”

“Lyubími,” Illya murmured. Napoleon rested his head against the arm he had been kissing.

“Forgive me,” he said.

They lay quietly entangled for some time, and Napoleon thought about food. They would have to eat at some point. He could go to the osteria on the corner, bring them back something. After a while he felt his eyelids grow heavy, and he let himself drift.

* * *

The turn of the door knob to their suite bolted him awake, just the small squeak of noise. Instantly his muscles were alert, poised to leap. He could feel Illya’s alertness beside him. “Hullo?” said Waverly’s voice. Napoleon turned to Illya.

“A security specialist in international espionage, and you left the front door unlocked?”

“You were last one through door,” Illya hissed, struggling up and lunging for clothes. It wasn’t his room, so he was out of luck there, except for his destroyed pajamas, which he just managed to pull up as Waverly came through the bedroom door, brisk smile firmly in place.

“Ah, there you lads are. You’ve been quite difficult to get in touch with, you know, when you don’t—ah, there’s the trouble,” he said, with a nod at the phone. It was lying largely disemboweled on the floor, next to the remains of the lamp – a casualty of last night, apparently. Kicked off as he had struggled against his nightmare. Napoleon tugged the sheet a bit higher. 

“I’m afraid you find us a bit indisposed,” he said.

“You don’t say.” Waverly was surveying the wreckage of the room, which Napoleon was uncomfortably aware must reek of sex. But Waverly was seating himself on a chair as though he were having tea with the Queen. “I have news that couldn’t wait, I’m afraid. But I’m glad to see the vacation is going well.”

Illya made a noise that was close to a growl. “Sit down,” Waverly said to him, but Illya crossed his arms and remained standing. 

“So I’ve got your new assignments,” he said, reaching for a small sheaf of papers in his jacket pocket, and handing it to Napoleon, who handed Illya’s to him. He was having a conversation about assignments with his superior, while completely naked and in bed, but Waverly was carrying on as though everything were perfectly normal. 

“So if you’ll take a look, you’ll see that—”

“Singapore,” Napoleon said in surprise.

“Yes, the situation there is becoming quite volatile. U.N.C.L.E. has every confidence that—”

“Mine says Johannesburg,” Illya said. 

“And now we come to the point,” Waverly said, to a room that had gone quiet. “As I said before, Kuryakin has been cleared of all suspicion of wrongdoing in the inquiry, with full privileges restored. But the condition of this was, I am afraid, that the two of you not work together again. It wouldn’t be—”

“You knew,” Napoleon said. “When we met for coffee, you knew. You chose not to tell me.”

“Yes,” Waverly said. 

“You bastard fuck of a monkey’s hairy cunt,” Illya said, but he said it in Russian.

“Don’t you think I tried to prevent this,” Waverly said, his voice gone as quiet as the room.

Napoleon kicked off the sheets and strode across to his case, pulling out clothes. Let Waverly look or not, he no longer gave a fuck. He pulled on pants, buttoned his shirt, laced his belt. He tossed a bathrobe at Illya, who took it. They would not be having this conversation naked, that was for damn sure. 

“You send us into the field without the other, one of us will end up dead,” Illya was saying, and Napoleon could hear it, could hear the tremor of rage in his voice as he struggled to control it. “You know this. There is no one who can have my back like Solo, and no one can partner with Solo like I can. There is no one who can do that.”

“Miss Teller is—”

“Gaby’s a world-class liar, she has her wits about her, and she’s clever as hell, but at the end of the day, she’s a civilian, and you know it,” Napoleon said, tying his tie. “There is no other agent in U.N.C.L.E. or out of it who can play at our level. Without each other, he’s right, we end up dead. But I would imagine that’s the point, isn’t it?”

“I would imagine so,” Waverly said. 

Illya snorted in disgust. “I quit,” he said. 

“As do I,” Napoleon said. 

Waverly nodded thoughtfully. “So, you are formally refusing to follow these orders? You are hereby and officially severing your association with the United Network Command?”

“Yes,” they said together. Illya also said some other things, in Russian, but fortunately Waverly’s Russian was not all that good. 

Waverly nodded again. “Excellent,” he said. He got up and walked to the window, moving the curtain aside with his finger as though suddenly interested in the view. Napoleon exchanged a glance with Illya.

“There is a war in the intelligence community,” Waverly said. “You might have noticed, it’s not a war our side appears to be winning.”

“Our side?” Illya said skeptically.

“Yes, you know. The people who would prefer the world not to end in a fiery cataclysm. The people who always seem to be losing. That’s what U.N.C.L.E. was meant to fix.”

He fell silent again, still studying the view. Illya crossed his arms. “Petrushka,” Waverly finally said. “Or whatever his real name is. He represents the rogue element in the KGB, whom he broke with long ago. There have always been men on both sides of this chilly war – and why is it always men, have you ever wondered about that one – who would prefer just to watch the world go up in smoke. The CIA has their share as well. But now the rogues on both sides have broken free, enraged at all the attempts at reconciliation, all the diplomacy, all the careful hedging of bets. They want their apocalypse, and they want it now. It’s been building, ever since they assassinated the man who had threatened to expose them all.”

“Kennedy,” Napoleon said.

“Yes. I just thought we’d have more time. Petrushka’s capture of you, his blatant and rather clumsy attempt to de-stabilize U.N.C.L.E. – that’s what that’s all about. It’s open warfare now. They’ve taken over U.N.C.L.E. and there’s, well, to use a playing field vulgarity, there’s fuck-all I can do about it,” he said lightly. “Yes, Solo, I knew about the assignments when I met with you. But I still had hope. I played for time because I had one or two throws left, but they failed me.”

“And now is when it really gets fun, I'm guessing,” Napoleon said.

“You're not wrong. If you leave U.N.C.L.E., they will come for you. The actual KGB and the actual CIA, as well as rogue elements within both. Not to mention U.N.C.L.E. You won’t have anywhere to hide.”

“So maybe we don’t hide,” Illya said. He glanced at Napoleon, and their discussion was long and silent. 

“I’m afraid I don’t follow,” Waverly said. 

“He’s suggesting we fight,” Napoleon said. 

Waverly raised his brows. “Fight. That’s at least five groups of armed assassins aiming for the two of you. Those odds are, to put the best possible face on it, bleak.”

“Bleak is something of a specialty of ours. It’s when we do our best work, really. Besides, I was rather hoping we could do better than just two.”

Waverly was looking from one to the other of them. “I’m not your superior any more. You don’t owe me anything. This is my fight, and you don’t need to be any part of it. It’s a fight that’s been a long time coming, and in many ways it’s one I’ve been fighting for twenty years already, off and on. I had thought U.N.C.L.E. might be the solution, and instead I’ve just created one more problem, one more opportunity for the nihilists to exploit. You’ll forgive me if I’m not overly sanguine about where all this is heading.” He rubbed at his eyes. He looked as tired as he sounded, with lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there before. He wondered when was the last time Waverly had slept.

“We are part of this already,” Illya said. “Petrushka has seen to that.”

Waverly was still studying them both. “I can’t ask this of you,” he said.

“You didn’t,” Napoleon said. “I don’t care what any government payroll says. We’re your agents, and there’s an end of it. So now let’s go save the world.”

“Just the three of us, trying to save the entire planet from probable nuclear extinction?”

Illya shrugged. “If you feel it is unfair, we give them head start.”

Waverly sat, pulled out a small notebook from his jacket, began scribbling things down. “The story will be that you overpowered me and took my weapon,” he said. “We’ll meet at our base of operations and go from there. Our base will be—”

“Ethelden,” Napoleon said, and Waverly nodded as he continued to write. 

“Yes, you have it exactly. I’m writing down a series of passcodes which you must memorize, because I’ll destroy this as soon as you’ve read it. Those codes will allow access not only to the gates of Ethelden, but everything within the manor complex as well as the, ah, underground facilities.”

“Excellent,” Napoleon said. “A batcave.”

Illya grimaced. “I do not like bats.”

“No no, it’s a literary reference you philistine. Surely you know Batman and Robin? No? How is that possible? You’re Robin, obviously, in this scenario.”

“Excuse me, they are not caves, they are state of the art underground bunkers, filled with the most advanced technology and weaponry available, and quite a lot that isn’t. And if anyone is Batman in this situation, it’s obviously me. Here you go,” Waverly said, handing a piece of paper to both of them. Napoleon scanned it.

“There is no governing key,” Illya said. “This is useless without master code.”

“Yes, I was coming to that. The master code I never write down, for any reason. It’s—”

“Lancelot,” Napoleon said. Waverly met his eyes.

“Yes,” he said, after a beat of silence. “Well. All right. Operation Save The World it is.”

“Business as usual, then,” Napoleon said. He met Illya’s eyes over top of Waverly’s head. They were heading off to almost certain death. The Light Brigade had stood a better chance than they did, but somehow he was filled with a strange exhilaration. 

“So we’ve got to make this look at least mildly convincing,” Waverly said, rising. “I shall need to be knocked about a bit. Just one or two really good blows ought to do it. Who’s going to do the honors? Kuryakin, your face looks a right mess already, so my money’s on Solo’s right hook. Come on, don’t be shy, no time like the present.”

Napoleon frowned. “There has to be another way to—”

“My agent, and there’s an end of it, I believe was what you said? Good, right then. Away we go.” He stood there cheerily, a small smile on his face, beckoning at Napoleon, who glanced at Illya. Illya just raised his eyebrows. How helpful. 

Napoleon sighed, and punched his boss in the face.


	8. Epilogue: All In The Valley of Death

It took them six, possibly seven minutes to clear the rooms of their belonging. Forty seconds to pack their cases, and another five minutes and sixteen seconds to sweep the room of any traces and secure their own bugs in the most inaccessible spots. Odds were the room would be tossed by whoever came for them first, and that might be an interesting conversation to hear. Worth hanging around for, in fact. They could rent a seedy room for a few nights only about a block away and have an excellent vantage point, to see who exactly came chasing after them soonest. A risky game, to lurk low while their hunters were so nearby, but every move in this game would have risk. 

They had one, maybe two hours. Napoleon stood out on the balcony and smoked a cigarette, enjoying the last of the view. They really were spectacular rooms. A shame to leave them, particularly since their accommodations were not likely to be quite this good for some time.

“You ready, Cowboy?”

“In just a moment.”

Illya came and stood beside him, shaking his head when Napoleon offered him a cigarette. “Just relishing the last of this view,” Napoleon said.

“Sybarite.”

“What an unusual word for you to pick up.”

“Is always surprise for you, that I am not idiot.”

“No no, I was just wondering if maybe you had confused it with sodomite.”

Illya gave a quirk of smile. He took another deep drag. Good cigarettes too – probably the last pack of Rothmans Royals he would be able to lay his hands on for a bit. He blew a plume of over-priced smoke at the line of mountains in the distance. “Nathan Jacob Seidelman,” he said. Illya gave him a puzzled look.

“You did ask,” he said, and he saw understanding dawn on Illya’s face. 

“So, not Italian, then,” Illya said, and Napoleon gave a short laugh.

“Not even a little. You were wrong about one thing, though,” he said, examining the ash on the tip of his Rothmans. “It’s not the name an eighteen-year-old comes up with. It’s the name a thirteen-year-old dreams of, when he’s sleeping on the sofa of the one-bedroom apartment he shares with his mentally unbalanced mother and telling himself stories about the person he wants to become, in order not to hear her raving and screaming in the next room. Hoping that this is not the night the neighbors call the police again. Reading endless detective stories and imagining himself in them, just in order to be somewhere else, anywhere else. That’s what that name is for. Solo. Absolute aloneness. Never needing anyone or anything, ever again. And then of course, Napoleon, for the greatest territorial conqueror in European history. The invincible one. What could be better?”

They stood together in silence for a bit. Napoleon flicked his cigarette overboard. “She is still alive?” Illya asked.

“Oh yes. She was in and out of a few places, passed about among relatives, but she was institutionalized permanently when I was sixteen. I drifted for a bit, and the minute I turned eighteen I changed my name legally and joined the army. I visited her when I could, but her hold on reality is. . . tenuous. She has no real idea who I am, not really. She’s not unhappy, I don’t think.”

“Invincible until he came to Russia,” Illya said, after a minute.

“Beg pardon?”

“Just saying. Napoleon was greatest territorial conqueror, until he came to Russia. Then he was defeated by greatest country in world.”

Napoleon looked at him incredulously. “Did you – I’m sorry, did you just use my extremely moving personal story as an opportunity to score political points?”

“Maybe.”

“Communist prick.”

“Sodomite.”

Napoleon threw back his head and laughed. Illya smiled too. Anyone watching them would have said they were two relaxed vacationers, without a care in the world. “Well,” Napoleon said. “My only point was this. If you’re off to save the world, you ought to know who you’re saving it with, is what I think.”

“Mm,” Illya said. “I already knew who I was with, Napoleon Solo.” He said the name with the sort of softness and caressing length of vowel with which he said dorogόy or lyubími. Had Illya always said his name like that, and he had just never noticed? 

For a little while, as he smoked out on this balcony, he had wondered if perhaps last night – and this morning – had been an anomaly, something they would leave behind in Florence with the expensive pied-à-terre and the linen sheets. A possible ramification of themselves, but not one they would re-visit. It had flitted across his brain. But the way Illya had just said his name – the way you would say a lover’s name, letting it curl around your tongue.

Illya leaned closer, and Napoleon startled. They were on the balcony, and in full view of anyone who cared to look. They might already have watchers. But he didn’t flinch away. Illya’s lips brushed his, and it was a gesture so wholly new to him he almost was at a loss for how to respond. Illya’s thumb brushed at his cheekbone. 

“S tobόy vsyé vporyádke?” Illya murmured. Napoleon nodded, leaned into Illya slightly. “Yes,” he whispered back. “I’m all right.”

And then he decided he could do better than that, and leaned all the way in, seizing Illya’s mouth with his own, and kissing him properly. Anything worth doing was worth doing well, after all. Illya’s arm slid around his waist, and he could catch the stuttered breath of his exhale—there, that was the sound. The sound that went straight to his cock, and made him want to do such sinful things. The press of Illya’s chest against his. He was going to develop quite a fetish for Illya’s chest. Illya’s mouth. Would he ever get to the end of it, of the things he wanted it to do to him?

Napoleon pulled back and studied his partner. “You asked me a question,” he said. “Yesterday. The answer is yes, I think so.”

“About what?”

“About Lucrezia’s necklace. _Amour dure sans fin_ and all that. I can’t tell you if what it says is true. Who the hell knows. But I can tell you it is true for me. It does for me.” 

Illya’s eyes darkened. “Sans fin?”

“Byéz kontsá.” _Without end._

Illya was nodding, that small smile on his lips so delicious Napoleon had to lean in and kiss it again. “Of course,” Illya said. “In our case, end is probably not so far away.”

“Situation normal, then.” 

“Yes. I give us three months.”

“The Light Brigade had a better chance.”

“We probably die painful death.”

“Peril, you’re a hopeless romantic.”

Illya grinned, and even though he was of course not wrong – Illya’s assessments were depressingly accurate, as a rule – Napoleon could not help the smile that curved his lips too.

“Half a league, half a league, into the mouth of hell and all that,” he said lightly. Illya frowned. “It’s a literary reference, have you never read any English literature at all?”

“Is this Batman you talk about?”

“Oh God help me, it’s Tennyson, _Tennyson_ you ignoramus, I can’t believe I am going to my death with someone who has for a sure and certain fact never read Tennyson. It’s a poem about men charging to their death because someone sent the wrong order in battle, it’s extraordinarily moving. The sort of thing Waverly was forced to memorize in school.”

“So, they die because they choose to?”

“They die because someone taught English public school boys that obedience was noble. Come on, let’s get out of here.” He stuffed his pack of Rothmans back in his jacket and they made their way to the door. They slipped communicators in their ears, running through a series of silent checks. With a curt nod, Illya headed out first, and Napoleon hung back. They would leave separately, from separate entrances. They would meet tonight in the hidey-hole of a room Waverly had secured, or they would not. They would do their jobs until they could no longer do them. Sooner or later, this game would have an end, and it was not, finally, an end that either one of them could control. 

Other things, he knew now, would not have an end. The knowledge of that comforted him, warmed him, strengthened the spine in him. 

“Cowboy,” whispered the communicator in his ear, and Napoleon startled. “I have memorized Lay of Igor’s Host, is four thousand verses long in Old Slavonic, too long for weak American mind, I recite it for you now. Nachnem potόm, bratya, étot ráskaz ot—”

“Get off this line,” Napoleon hissed, and flipped his communicator to off, but not before the low rumble of Illya’s laugh staticked his earpiece. He headed down the hotel corridor, clicking the door behind him, the smile on his face as smooth a mask as ever.


End file.
